Karma
by J0
Summary: The Universe has a way of making things balance out. Ch 11 of 11: Elliot finds out why Veronica came for him, and he decides to take her advice.
1. Visitor

**Disclaimer: SVU and its characters are not mine. Veronica, Natalie, Ted, Madeline, and Nikki are. This story is written for fun and not for profit.**

**KARMA**

**Chapter One: Visitor**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**3:24 P.M., March 15, 2006**

Munch saw her first, as he was turning away from the coffee maker, a tall, willowy beauty with a creamy complexion and full, red lips. Her auburn hair, such a dark red it was almost brown, framed her serene face in shining waves like a glamorous movie star from the forties and set off her vibrant green eyes so dramatically that they almost seemed to glow. Her dress was a little out-of-date, but very elegant, made of a soft, floaty chiffon that almost seemed to dance because it was so light that even the faintest breeze would stir it. She smelled of lavender.

John stepped forward. "May I help you?" he asked.

"I'm looking for a detective," she said in a low, musical voice that made him smile.

"Detective John Munch, at your service," he informed her with a schoolboy grin.

She cupped his cheek with a soft, cool hand and said, "You're a very kind man, very chivalrous, and very sad, but you're not the one I'm looking for."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had someone specific in mind," Munch replied frowning. Most of his friends knew him as a Gloomy Gus, but how had this stranger read him so easily? "Who is it you're looking for?"

"I don't know his name," she said, obviously a bit embarrassed. Then she opened a small leather portfolio that he hadn't noticed her carrying and handed him a thick, creamy sheet of paper. "But this is he."

John looked down and gasped. There in his hands was a pen-and-ink drawing of Elliot Stabler, sleeves rolled up, hands on his hips, mouth slightly open. It was rendered in almost photographic detail, right down to the suggestion of two small scars, one on his chin and the other on his forehead. The mischievous twinkle in his eye gave the sketch such a lifelike quality that Munch could almost hear his colleague's voice as he made some smart-ass comment.

"I'm sorry, he's been in court all afternoon," John informed her.

"Then you must get him back here right away," the woman said intently. "His life is in danger."


	2. Fruitless

**Chapter Two: Fruitless**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**3:28 P.M., March 15, 2006**

Munch frowned and felt a chill pass through him. This woman didn't seem to be a garden-variety kook, and despite her ominous words, there didn't seem to be a hint of threat or malice about her. Still, he had a bad feeling.

Cupping his hand under her elbow, he said, "Come with me, please."

She offered no resistance, so he guided her into an interview room and asked her to wait. She assented by taking a seat at the table and inclining her head.

"Would you like something to drink?" he offered, hoping that making her comfortable would get him more information.

"I'm fine, thank you," she replied serenely and opened her portfolio to a blank page.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

She took out a pencil, gave him a mischievous smile, and said, "I didn't throw it to you."

At his mildly exasperated expression, she winked and said, "My name is Veronica Austin. I live on East 67th Street, a near the park."

Nodding, Munch backed out of the room. He stood outside the door for a minute, feeling perplexed. Then he headed for Cragen's office.

vvvvvvv

"She seems harmless," Munch said. "Sweet, even."

"But she threatened Elliot's life," Cragen responded, letting go of the drawing and watching the paper float down to his desk top. It was eerie how much detail there was in it. He almost expected the image to move.

"It didn't come across that way," John argued. "It was more like . . . a warning."

"That she was going to do something?" Don inquired.

"No, that she knew something was going to happen."

The captain sighed in frustration. "Ok, I'll put a call into the courthouse asking Elliot to come right back to the station when he's done with his testimony. You get someone to check her out. Then call Huang down here to observe the interview."

"You know, it could be someone he's worked with in the past," John suggested. "A victim who's finally and completely fallen apart."

Don looked at the drawing one more time and shook his head in concern. "Maybe, but she didn't do this sketch from memory or a newspaper photo," he said. "She's been watching him, and that worries me."

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**4:16 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"How do you know this detective?" John asked in a friendly tone, not willing to give up Elliot's name.

"I don't," Veronica said, shading in the boards on what looked to be a large shipping crate as she spoke. "I've never met him."

"Then how did you do this drawing? It's incredibly good."

"Thank you," she beamed, looking up at him and giving her head a toss so a thick lock of auburn hair would get out of her eyes. "I like to draw."

"I can tell. But how did you draw him if you've never met him before?"

She shrugged. "I just did."

Munch was quiet for a minute, waiting to see if Veronica would feel compelled to fill the silence, but she didn't. The only sound in the room was the quiet scratching of her pencil, as she was content to sit there sketching. Her movements were graceful and feminine, but overtly confident and sure. In the thirty minutes he had been watching her, she hadn't hesitated over a single line and hadn't used the eraser once. It was as if the image was flowing from her to the paper and the pencil was a more of a conduit than a tool.

Folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, Munch asked, "And how did you know he was a policeman?"

"I saw his badge."

"Where?"

"In my sketch."

It was indeed there, the little 6313 as clear as day on the shield sketched on Elliot's belt.

"And _where_ did you get the idea for your sketch?" John asked, peering over his glasses, no longer able to keep the frustration out of his voice.

"Please don't be angry at me," she implored pausing for the first time. "It just came into my head. It happens like that sometimes, and if I don't draw what I see in my mind's eye, it stays with me, wakes me at night. I just drew it because I saw it in my mind, and once I was finished, I knew I needed to talk to him, to warn him."

"About what?"

"I don't know," she pouted, looking over the drawing and nodding in satisfaction.

She tucked her newly completed sketch of Elliot standing beside a shipping crate with his gun drawn into her portfolio and took out another sheet of blank paper.

"How did you know you'd find him here?" Munch stared at her hands as she rapidly scratched out a picture frame and began sketching figures inside the rectangle.

"I followed my feet."

"I beg your pardon?"

She continued to draw, not even looking up. "I started walking and ended up here."

John ached to snatch the pencil out of her hand, snap it in two, yell in her face. He actually had to ball up his fists and put them under the table to prevent it.

Finally, she stopped her doodling and made eye contact. "It's frightfully odd, you know. Nothing like this has ever happened to me."

As she finished speaking, she smiled, her eyes lit up and she positively beamed. Turning in the direction of the squad room, her back to the one-way glass, she said, "He's here." Her tone was a mixture of excitement and relief. "May I see him now?"

There was a tap on the one-way glass, and John knew the captain was calling him out of the interview. As he exited the room to go join his CO and Dr. George Huang, he glanced into the squad room. Elliot was nowhere to be seen. On an impulse, he paused and waited a moment. Five seconds later, his colleague came striding through the doors, as confident and care free as he could be these days, his jacket slung over his shoulder, and John felt positively ill.


	3. Meeting

**Chapter Three: Meeting**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**4:48 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"So, what have we got on this lady?" Elliot asked, staring at the drawing, obviously deeply disturbed by it. He'd returned from court intending to grab his things and go home to do some laundry. Since the divorce, he and Kathy had worked out an agreement that let him have the kids two weekends a month and every other Wednesday, but for scheduling purposes, it had been easier for Cragen to give him that afternoon off every week. Today, though, the captain had called him into his office and told him the most peculiar story.

Needing to focus him on the discussion, Cragen gently pulled the paper from his hands and slid it into a folder. The team had been huddled in the observation room for about ten minutes as the mysterious woman sat on the other side of the one-way glass, still drawing.

"Well, either the name or the address is phony," Fin said. "No one called Veronica Austin lives on East 67th Street anywhere in the neighborhood she mentioned. No family by that name, either. But we do have fourteen hits in the state, mostly in the five boroughs, that we are checking out. From there, we'll move onto New Jersey."

"Did you check the local hospitals and mental facilities?" Elliot asked, a hum in his voice like a high-tension wire. "She could be just a crackpot who wandered off."

"We're working on it," Don said. "But that still doesn't explain how she knows you."

"She does not know me!" Elliot snapped.

Cragen put his hands up defensively. "Knows who you are, knows where you work, whatever. It doesn't explain why she's here looking for you."

Elliot nodded, looking contrite. "Sorry," he apologized. Looking to Huang, he asked, "Doc, what kind of a read did you get on her?"

Huang shrugged. "She seems harmless, a little confused, very vague, but I don't sense any underlying pathology, at least nothing threatening."

"Nothing threatening?" Munch echoed questionably. "I should have had you check my blood pressure when I was done talking to her. Only a career politician could use more words and say less!"

Huang and Fin smiled slightly at the comment, but Elliot remained all business.

"Could she be working with someone?" he demanded.

"It's always possible, but to what end?" Cragen asked.

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe I've pissed someone off and they want me twisting!"

"Maybe?" Olivia quipped, trying to lighten the moment.

Elliot scowled at her, but the sympathy in her eyes and the quirk at the corner of her mouth were irresistible. He had friends who would help him, protect him if necessary, and that knowledge finally made him smile, if only a little.

"Ok, that's a given," he admitted, his tone calmer than it had been a moment before. "But who would take it this far? And if she's in on it, how could she possibly fool the captain, Munch, and the doc?"

"I don't know," Liv suggested, "but we should probably start looking at your old cases."

"Especially the ones that involved wackos instead of just run of the mill perverts," John recommended.

"Ya think?" Elliot said with a look that admonished him for stating the obvious, and John shrugged, understanding why his colleague was a bit irritable.

"Did we have any luck getting her prints?" Fin asked.

"I called CSU," Munch said. "Millie Vizcarrando came down here and tested the drawing, but there were no useable prints. She took a sample strip of paper from it to test back at the lab. Said she'll call when she has anything."

"Millie?" Elliot inquired.

"Haven't you noticed?" Fin asked with a teasing grin. "She's been sweet on you ever since you helped her with that kid she was trying to find a name for."

The comment didn't have the desired effect. Elliot just scowled again. They'd found the killer, given four families of missing children closure, if not peace, and reunited a pair of star-crossed lovers, but they hadn't gotten a name for the boy in the box.

"Ok, then," Don said, taking control. "Liv, Elliot, start sifting through your old cases. See if anything rings a bell. Fin, keep working on your search. See if you can find someone who knows this woman. Munch, take over calling the hospitals. Doc, would you mind talking to her and seeing if you can get any more information out of her?"

"Actually, Captain," George replied. "I'm thinking Elliot should be the one to talk to her."

"Why?" Elliot asked, his unease showing in the one word. "Besides the obvious, I mean."

"Well, if the obvious is, because she's fixated on you, then I would say, besides that, she might be more open and willing to talk if we give her what she wants." When Elliot looked incredulous, he added, "She has only expressed concern for your well-being. She might be relieved to see that you're ok."

Looking to his captain, Elliot got a shrug. "Couldn't hurt," Don said. "If you're up to it."

Too proud to admit that he was seriously creeped out, Elliot took a deep, calming breath and said, "Ok. How should I approach her?"

The shrink shrugged slightly. "I'd say be casual. As far as anyone knows right now, she's just a member of the public asking to speak to you."

Folding his arms and sighing, Elliot said, "All right, then, let's see what we get."


	4. Interview

**Chapter Four: Interview**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**5:13 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"You wanted to speak to me?" Elliot asked as casually as possible upon entering the interview room. He knew Huang and the Captain were observing from the other side of the mirror, but he acted like they weren't there. Officially, this woman wasn't a suspect in anything; she was just here for some conversation.

"Oh, you're all right," Veronica gasped. "Thank goodness!"

Elliot gave her a quizzical look and she explained, "I knew you were here, but when they wouldn't let me see you, I was afraid that you had been hurt."

"Well, I appreciate your concern," Elliot said, spinning the chair across from her around so he could sit astride it, "but, who are you?"

"Veronica Austin," she said as if he should know what that meant.

Nodding, and leaning forward in the chair to rest his forearms on the table, he said, "My friends told me your name, but I don't know you."

"I don't know you either," she said. "I'm as confused by this as you are."

"But you came looking for me," he told her.

"Because I saw you," she said, taking up her pencil and starting another sketch.

"Where?"

"I . . . I don't know," she said haltingly, "just in images in my mind. I see things a lot. Pictures I have to draw, but I've never felt so compelled to meet the real subject before, and I never felt so frightened for anyone in my life. What's your name?"

His smile was almost a sneer when he told her, "You tell me."

Obviously, she had to know his name. After all, she had come looking for him.

She blinked, nonplussed. "I don't know."

He frowned, considered his next move, and decided it couldn't hurt to give her information that he knew she already had anyway. "Elliot," he said.

She smiled, pleased that he had given in. Extending a hand, she said, "Pleased to meet you, Elliot."

Shaking hands wouldn't cost him anything, so he grasped hers. Immediately, she tensed, swayed in her chair like she was about to fall over. He reached out to steady her, and she clutched his other hand. Clinging to him with both hands now, with a viselike grip, she began to ramble.

"Kathy she still loves you, Elliot. You can have her back. All you have to do is say you're sorry and try to fix things.

"Kathleen is in more trouble than you know. She has an older friend, a young man in college, who buys her gin. She needs help. She has a problem she can't handle herself.

"Maureen has changed her major. She's taking up criminal justice. She's afraid to tell you because she thinks you'll be disappointed.

Pulling on his hands with surprising strength, she forced him to lean in close. Her pupils were widely dilated, the irises just thin green lines around pools of inky black, her voice a harsh whisper as she continued.

"Jack . . . your father . . . He's sorry for what he did to you . . . He loved you very much . . . but sometimes, he would go to this place where his anger was controlling him, not his mind . . . He's sorry, Elliot . . . He's sorry."

Just like that, her grip relaxed and she slumped back in her chair. Frightened now, Elliot jerked his hands away and stood up so fast he stumbled back from his chair and bumped into the mirror.

"What did she say about his father?" Cragen asked.

"I don't know," Huang replied softly. "I didn't hear it."

"Lady, who do you think you are?" he shouted in fear and anger. "Leave my family alone!"

He balled his fists up and knew he was going to smash something, or someone, if he didn't get out of there. Throwing his arms down to his sides and shaking some of the tension out, he stalked out of the room slamming the door behind him. Striding into the squad room he shouted to all who were present, "I need something on this bitch _now!_"

"Elliot, what's wrong?" Liv asked in concern as she approached him, hands extended in a placating gesture.

"She's been stalking my _family_, Liv," he gasped in near panic. "She knew about the divorce, Kathleen's . . . situation, _even my dad_."

"What about your dad?" Huang asked as he and Cragen caught up with the distraught detective.

Suddenly reigning in his emotions, he gave the shrink a narrow glare and said, "Never mind."

"Elliot, calm down," Cragen commanded kindly. "Go into my office and wait for me."

"Look, Cap . . . "

"Now." The captain's tone would brook no argument. When Elliot was gone, he turned to his other detectives and said, "The divorce is a matter of public record. Munch, find out if anyone has been looking into that, then call Kathy and see if she knows who this woman is. Olivia, get a hold of the guys who picked up Kathleen. See if they have been talking to anybody. Fin, find out who this woman is. Doc, just . . . keep an eye on her. I'm gonna ask Stabler about his dad."

Again, the team scattered to follow his orders.

vvvvvvv

When he entered his office, Don had to time his steps to cross the room and get behind his desk without being trod upon by a pacing Elliot.

"Nobody knows, nobody knows all that," Elliot was mumbling. He paused in his stride for a moment and asked, "Cap, how could she possibly know all that about me?"

Then he resumed pacing.

"Elliot, when Kathy filed for divorce, it became public information," Don told him. "I told you Kathleen's arrest would leave a paper trail, and it's probably not too hard to find out someone's major in college. As far as your dad is concerned, I know you've never talk about it, but I remember the Knapp Commission. It was in the papers every day for a while. It's all out there for anyone who's interested."

"What?" Elliot stopped and looked at him, and started walking yet again. "No, it wasn't that. It was something from when I was a kid. Something nobody knows, nobody could possibly know."

"Elliot." When the detective didn't stop pacing, Don spoke a little louder. "Elliot, sit down."

Elliot stopped, scowled at the chair beside him and then at his captain.

Don raised his eyebrows and commanded once more, "Sit."

Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Don quickly decided that he shouldn't ask what it was that nobody was supposed to know, but he had to find out how the woman who called herself Veronica Austin knew about it.

"Look, it's obvious that you don't want to share with me what she said about your dad."

"Cap, please . . . "

Holding up his hand to stop the argument Elliot was about to launch, he said, "It's ok, Son, but think very carefully. Are you sure nobody knows?"

"Well, Kathy knows, and her parents, probably her brothers and sisters, some of the kids I grew up with might have guessed it, too. It's not something I talk about, but people I was close to back then, they could have figured it out." His eyebrows shot up. "Rebecca Hendrix. I told her."

He looked perplexed. "Damn!" he whispered faintly.

Cragen nodded. "That's quite a list."

Elliot looked up, appalled. "But none of them would have any reason to _screw_ with me like this."

"No, but if someone wanted to hurt you bad enough, they could locate any one of those people and wheedled the information out of them."

Don took a tablet and a newly sharpened pencil out of his desk and handed them across to his detective. "Make a list of all the people who would know the information she told you about your dad. I'll have the squad divide the list. We'll start by asking them if any strangers have been making inquiries about you, and if we get a hit, we'll let you talk to them to find out if they mentioned what Veronica said."

Elliot took the pad and pen with a nod, and immediately began chewing on the pencil. Don smiled, knowing he wouldn't want it back and got up from behind his desk. Elliot looked up and started to rise from his seat, but Don stopped him with an upraised hand.

"Take your time, Son. Just sit in here and get a hold of yourself. I'm going to go look in on Veronica."

Elliot nodded, but as Don opened the door he turned in his seat and said, "Cap, I don't want anyone else talking to her yet. Soon as I'm done here, I'm gonna go back and continue the interview."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Don asked in concern.

"Not really, but I think Huang's right. If she's here to screw with my head, she must have gotten a real kick out of my reaction. We'll get more from her if we continue to give her what she wants."

Don nodded his agreement, but said, "If you change your mind, say so."


	5. Corpse

**Chapter Five: Corpse**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**6:36 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"She's completed three more drawings," Huang said.

"Of what?" Elliot asked, sounding like a man asking how much time remained until his own execution.

"I don't know. They way she holds her sketchbook, I couldn't see." He looked at his friend and asked, "Are you all right?"

Elliot didn't nod or shake his head, he just said, "I'll manage." He watched Veronica, or whoever the hell she was, none of the women Fin had located by that name matched her description, for a moment, and then asked, "How should I handle this?"

George couldn't hide his surprise completely; Elliot didn't usually seek advice preferring instead to operate as if he was expected to figure everything out for himself. Still, since he'd been asked, the doctor only raised his eyebrows slightly as he offered a suggestion, "Play along with her. If she seems surprised and apologetic, forgive her. If she thinks it's funny, laugh with her. If she's threatening, act afraid and get the hell out of there. Someone else can go in and she'll probably want to gloat to them about it."

"Yeah, well, that last one won't be an act," Elliot muttered and moved to the door.

The half-joking comment spoke volumes to the psychiatrist. He was sure Elliot wasn't buying into her tricky, but the fact that he couldn't discount her as easily as some sideshow fortuneteller had left him shake and a little uncertain of his own interrogation skills.

As the detective was stepping out of the room, George said, "One other thing."

"What?"

"Don't be aggressive. If she wants to be in control the moment you try to take charge, she will probably shut down."

Elliot nodded. "Got it."

vvvvvvv

He entered the room warily and crossed to the chair he had been sitting in before. Turning it around to face the table properly this time, he pushed it in and leaned against it uneasily for a moment. Then he moved to stand in the corner with his back to the wall, putting as much distance as possible between Veronica and himself.

She stopped drawing long enough to give him a pitiful look and say, "I'm sorry about that. I don't know what came over me."

He shook his head and said offhandedly, "It's all right. I think you were just as surprised as I was."

She smiled, and he returned the smile. She went back to her artwork. He could almost hear Huang telling him to sit down across from her, but he wasn't sure he could do that yet.

"Has that ever happened to you before?"

She looked up, eyes wide open, giving him an innocent look. "No, never."

"No little sparks of intuition?" he asked. "No creepy feelings? You've never had a sense about someone before?"

"Not once, not like that," she said, focusing on her sketch again.

Elliot nodded and crossed the room with a confidence he did not feel but had learned to fake rather effectively. Pulling out the chair, he sat before her and said, "Then I guess I ought to take this seriously."

Veronica heaved an enormous sigh of relief. "Thank God!"

Leaning forward, acting as if he really was buying into her game, he asked, "So, what do you think is going to happen to me?"

"I don't know when or where it will happen, but if you leave this place tonight, you will die," she said sincerely, her face sad.

"You said earlier that you saw it, didn't you?"

She nodded, her face drawn into a pout.

"What did you see?"

Veronica stopped drawing, stared at him hard for a moment, frowning and chewing her lip. She looked about to cry. Finally, she picked up her portfolio and shuffled through the sketches inside it.

Elliot squirmed in his chair, feeling goose bumps rise on his arms.

Pulling one out of the stack, she held it close to her breast and said sincerely, "I'm sorry. I don't want to frighten you or upset you, but this is what I saw, as clearly as I see you sitting here now, and I just know this is what's going to happen if you don't stay here."

"May I see it?" Elliot asked gently.

She handed the drawing to him reluctantly, angled so Elliot could not see the picture. The paper twitched like it was alive in her trembling hand. With a sense of foreboding, Elliot took the page and turned it so he could see her sketch.

As Cragen and Huang watched Elliot began to tremble, his shoulders began to heave as he struggled for breath, and slowly, he turned to face them. His complexion had gone translucently pale and sweat was beaded on his forehead and upper lip. In his shaking hand, he held the picture for them to see.

It was a black and white sketch, but rendered in such minute detail that it didn't matter. Their minds automatically filled in the colors.

Elliot lay against a paneled wall, in the suit he was wearing even now. His corpse, for he was obviously dead, slumped over and twisted to the side at an awkward angle. His mouth was wide open in surprise, but his blue eyes lacked that spark of life and vitality that his friends found so familiar and inviting. His head rested on the floor in an irregular halo of what was obviously bright red blood.

"I'm sorry," Veronica said.

"I'm getting him out of there," Don grumbled.

"Wait," Huang told him. "He'll let us know if he needs to leave."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Veronica chanted. "It's what I saw. It's what I saw. I'm sorry."

_Play along,_ Elliot told himself. _You're supposed to be scared shitless, and you've got that nailed, but don't panic. Don't freak out. BREATHE DAMMIT!_

He took a deep breath.

_Ok, that's better. Now, don't get pissed. She's upset, too, make her feel better. Play along._

"It's . . . " His voice was a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. "It's ok, Veronica."

"I'm sorry."

She was tearful. He put the sketch on the table face down and on shaky legs moved over to the filing cabinet to get her the tissues. Coming back to kneel beside her, he held the box out to her. Reluctant to touch her after what had happened when they shook hands, he placed his hand carefully on the back of her chair instead.

"It's ok," he said. "It's not your fault. I appreciate your trying to warn me."

She sniffled and blew her nose, looked at him with a tearstained face, and asked, "You're not mad?"

He shook his head and moved back to his seat. "You're trying to keep me alive," he said. "Why would I be mad?"

"Earlier you thought I was trying to frighten you."

He nodded. "Yeah, because you did, but I've dealt with my share of phony psychics, and I gotta tell you, after thinking about it, I realized that no one could know all of those things you told me."

Veronica lowered her head and frowned thoughtfully. Looking up with surprisingly genuine compassion in her eyes, she said, "Kathy's still crazy about you, Elliot. You should talk to her when this is over. She's been worried about Kathleen, but she doesn't know what's wrong."

Elliot felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but he just leaned back casually in his chair and said, "If I make it through tonight, I'll keep that in mind."

Veronica frowned and picked up her pencil again. "You don't believe me."

"Oh, it's not that," Elliot explained, "but you say I'm going to die tonight, and if you know anything about my relationship with my wife over the past couple of years, you know I can only climb one mountain at a time."

Veronica looked up and laughed slightly at the analogy. With a smile, she told him, "Just talk to Kathy. It will be easier than you think."

Nodding thoughtfully, Elliot gestured to the bulging portfolio. "You've been drawing all evening, haven't you?"

"All day, really," she replied. "I woke up with you in my mind. It was only this afternoon that I knew I needed to see you."

"Are all the sketches of me?" he asked, trying to sound as if he was flattered.

"Not all of them," she said. "Some of them are of people I don't know, but I think they're all connected to you."

"Mind if I take a look? Maybe show them around to the people in the squad room?"

"What for?" she asked suspiciously.

Elliot shrugged as if it didn't really matter to him. "Well, you might not know what's happening in them, but my colleagues and I might recognize something. It could help me avoid getting killed."

She accepted his explanation and handed over the portfolio. "All right, but I don't know how much good they'll do. They're not very good."

Elliot raised his eyebrows in surprise, but she didn't even notice. She was too busy sketching.

As he shuffled through the drawings he felt his heart begin to pound and his flesh begin to crawl. He didn't realize he had stopped breathing until he had to gasp for breath. Then he started seeing red splotches, like drops of blood, across his vision.

"Excuse me," he gasped, and carrying the drawings with him, he got up and left the room.

Cragen and Huang met him in the hall.

"Elliot, what is it?"

He thrust the drawings into his captain's hands, shoved the doctor aside, and bolted for the men's room, one hand clamped securely across his mouth.


	6. Sketchbook

**Chapter Six: Sketchbook**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**7:27 P.M., March 15, 2006**

Olivia found her partner slouched against the wall of the handicapped stall, his chest and underarms soaked with perspiration. She had been elected to go into the men's room and check on him because if he needed to talk she was the one he would most likely open up to, and if he was pissed off, well, he'd never hit a woman.

"You ok?" she asked tentatively.

He smiled at her wanly. "Hell, no."

"Those are some, uh, pretty freaky pictures." She held out a hand to him.

"No shit." He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. Exiting the stall ahead of her, he went over to the row of sinks beside the urinals and rinsed his face with cold water.

Patting himself dry with a paper towel, he muttered gruffly, "Let's get back to work."

"Elliot," the captain said as he sauntered into the squad room.

He walked right by his CO. He was on a mission.

"Ok, people, this is what we need to do," he said, taking command of the situation as if Cragen wasn't there.

"Elliot."

He ignored the compassionate tone. "Munch, get some uniforms out to my mother-in-law's house, then call security at Hudson. Tell them to find Maureen and tell her to pack a bag. She's coming home."

"Elliot!"

"Make sure they know to stay with her until someone shows up. Liv, she's comfortable with you. I want you to go get her."

"Elliot!"

He wheeled on Cragen screaming. "WHAT, DAMMIT?"

"I'm taking you off this," Don said. "She's getting to you. We've already checked on your family. They're all safe, and Maureen is packing as we speak. I've sent a uniform to get her because we need Liv here."

"I'm not quitting this case," he said.

"You can't work it effectively in this state. We'll take care of it for you."

"No. No." He got in his captain's face. "NO!"

He turned to walk away and then wheeled round again to snatch the drawings from Cragen's hands. He shuffled through the pictures, there were twenty or more, and held one up for them all to see, "Look at this. LOOK at this! Dickie was seven years old here. I remember that day because he asked me to come speak to his class. He was in the second grade.

He held up another drawing. "Maureen was only twelve or thirteen here. She only wore braces for that one year."

Another sketch. "Kathleen's friend was pregnant. I was kicking soccer balls at her to help her practice and trying to talk to her about sex at the same time. She got fed up with the clumsy way I was trying to subtly compare sex with soccer, told me she was a virgin, and stomped away.

"This picture of my dad and me in front of the tent used to hang at the top of the stairs in my parents' house. It's the only damned time he ever took me camping, and I caught an eight-pound bass! By then we'd used up all the film, though, so I never did get a picture of me with the fish.

"This family portrait is on my dresser in my bedroom at home. It's the only copy there is because we kept the proofs. How the hell did she get all of these pictures?"

"We'll send a CSU team to your house, Elliot," Don told him. "We'll figure it out."

Elliot acted like he hadn't even heard his boss. "This freak has been stalking my family and me for _years_. I don't know why, and I don't know how I missed her, but she's decided to show herself now, and dammit, I'm gonna get her. I AM! Not you, not the squad. ME!"

"DETECTIVE STABLER!" Cragen shouted.

Elliot stood ramrod straight, breathing heavily, and looked at his captain with fury in his eyes.

"You're not doing anything until you've got your head on straight again," Don said sternly. "I don't care if you have to beat the hell out of the punching bag in the workout room, hit the showers, take a nap in the crib, or get yourself a cookie from the snack machine. As long as you let her tie you up in knots, you're off the case. We've taken care of your family. They're all safe. You're no good to us like, and you're more than likely going to make a mistake that will get someone hurt. Once you get it together, we'll talk, but until then, I'm putting you on ice."

Elliot fixed his CO with a murderous glare, but he didn't argue. Knowing that now was her chance, Olivia grabbed his elbow and pulled him out of the squad room.

"Come on, partner," she said gently. "Let's go talk."

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**7:52 P.M., March 15, 2006**

Elliot slowly sipped the scotch Cragen had poured for him. It would certainly raise a few eyebrows that an alcoholic police captain kept a bottle of booze in his desk, which he shared with his detectives but did not partake of himself, but at times like this, it was a comfort to have it there.

"Did Kathy sound all right?" Don asked.

Elliot pressed his lips into a firm straight line and nodded. "Yep. She's confused and pissed off, but she understands that it's serious, so she's cooperating."

"That's good. And Maureen?"

"I wish they hadn't scared the hell out of her, but she's doing ok." He took a sip of his drink, gave his captain a frustrated smile. "She's changed her major. To criminal justice."

He drained the glass, shivered slightly at the burn it caused in his throat.

"Now what?"

"I want you to take a closer look at all of those pictures," the captain said. "See how many of them you recognize. She has obviously devoted a lot of time and effort to you, maybe there is some kind of larger context here that we're missing. Only you can tell us that."

Don came around the desk and Elliot rose out of his chair, still a little shaky. The captain put a steadying hand on his shoulder and they exited the office together.

"Has anyone else spoken to her?" Elliot asked as he passed through the open door.

"Nope. You did a pretty good job of concealing you reactions until you got out of the interview room. Huang's been observing her. She's still drawing. He thinks, when you're up to it, you should be the one to go back in and talk to her."

"Great," Elliot said in a tone of dread.

"If you don't think you can do it, just say so."

"Let me see how I feel after I go through the drawings, ok?"

Cragen nodded. "All right."

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**8:31 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"I think I'm done," Elliot said with obvious relief as he tapped the pictures into a neat stack.

Turning his head to the captain's office, he called excitedly, "Cap! Come have a look at this."

A moment later, Munch and Fin had also gathered round his desk, and a uniformed officer had relieved Huang in the observation room so he could join them.

"These," he tapped a thick stack of drawings, "I recognize all of them. They're moments I remember, birthday parties, school plays, twenty years of marriage and police work."

"You think she's been stalking you that long?" Fin asked.

Elliot shuddered at the suggestion and looked in the direction of the interview room. "I can't think of any other way to explain it," he said. "But is she old enough for that?"

Munch pursed his lips and nodded. "She could be, but just barely."

Elliot shook his head as if to clear it of thoughts he didn't want to acknowledge. Then he held up a thin stack of pictures. "These five are different, they're generic. I can't place them as part of any specific event, but together, they tell a story."

He laid the first one down. It showed him on the phone, jotting down information from a caller. The close observer could see tiny bite marks on the cap of the pen. The scene happened hundreds, if not thousands, of times a year.

"I take a call," he said.

Then he was grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair and heading out of the office, again, something that had probably happened a dozen or more times in the past week alone. "I need to go somewhere."

He saw Fin glance at the jacket draped over his chair and said, "It's the same one. She could have easily seen me wearing it in court today before she came here."

The next was of him and Olivia entering a darkened building through a loading dock. They both had their guns drawn. There was a truck parked to their left and a grocery cart beside the door.

"This one's pretty specific," he said, "but I don't ever remember it happening. That logo," he pointed to a circle of stars with a chunk cut out of it by an axe, "it's a Price Chopper."

"So, it's probably not in the city," Munch said. "All we have in Manhattan are the little mom and pop groceries and bodegas."

"Soon as we're done here, you need to start checking your files for anyone who has anything to do with that chain," Cragen told Liv.

"Right," she nodded.

"Obviously, I've spotted someone."

He showed them the picture Veronica had drawn while she was talking to Munch. It showed him standing beside a large shipping crate, his attention focused on something outside the boundary of the drawing, his gun up and ready to fire. There was a six-digit tracking number stenciled on the crate beside his head.

"Well, I'll be damned!" Elliot muttered.

"What is it?" Cragen asked.

"That number, 071833, it's my dad's birthday. July eighteenth, nineteen thirty-three."

"Elliot, this woman has obviously done her homework on you," Huang reminded him, in case he should get carried away again.

"She probably knows his favorite kind of jelly donut," Cragen added to help in the effort to keep his detective from falling apart again.

"Oh, I know that," he replied casually. "It's just, why would she pick that, given what she knows about him and me?"

He didn't notice or deliberately ignored the confused looks of his colleagues. "And he liked crullers with his coffee. So do I."

The last picture was of his lifeless corpse on the floor beside the paneled wall. "And someone has obviously spotted me."

For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Cragen broke the uneasy silence with, "Ok, let's find out who this woman is. Liv, Price Chopper, right?"

She nodded smartly, and they all went back to work, leaving Elliot to contemplate the meaning of the drawings.


	7. Funeral

**Chapter Seven: Funeral**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**9:18 P.M., March 15, 2006**

Huang watched as Elliot strolled into the interview room again. He'd managed to get a better grip on his emotions, and this time he was able to enter into a casual conversation almost immediately.

"You know," he said with a chuckle, "these pictures go back nearly twenty years. I could almost make a case for you stalking me."

Veronica closed her sketchbook and asked, "Now, why would I do that?"

Elliot shrugged. "I have no idea. You tell me." He said it as if he didn't really care.

"I don't know," Veronica replied, shaking her head.

"Now, you see," he said. "That's why I believe what you said about just 'seeing' these pictures. You _don't_ know me, and I don't know you. You have no earthly reason to have spent all this time watching my family and me."

He took the slim stack of five drawings and laid them out for her, not even appearing to be fazed by the one of his death. "So, tell me about these drawings. They're the only ones I can't place. Surely, you didn't see them as static images. You're drawing them from some kind of action sequence in your head, aren't you?"

"Not exactly," she said. "It's more like a strip of film from a movie reel. I see a series of pictures, most of them kind of fuzzy. You're in the center focus, but everything around you goes blurry. Then, somehow, one of them just clears up and gets stuck in my head and I draw it."

"I'm not sure I understand the difference," he said. "Explain it to me. Tell me this story."

"Well, I saw you sitting at your desk," she said. "With your pen in your mouth. Just you, the desk, and the pen. Nothing else in the room."

"Uh-huh."

"But that image," she flapped her hands about a bit, searching for a word, "it snapped away, and I saw you with your hand on the telephone receiver."

"And that went away too, did it?"

"Yes, it wasn't really clear. There were no details, nothing to give it context. You reached for your tablet next."

"And then?"

"You were taking your notes. That was the clearest one. I could see everything. It was all there."

"Was it an urgent call?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she nodded, "someone was in trouble. A child."

"That's why I left right away, isn't it?" He wasn't exactly surprised by her revelation. Considering his job it the call, if it had been real, would more likely than not be about a child in trouble.

"Of course," Veronica said as if he should have realized that for himself.

"Did I find the child in time?"

A frown rumpled her pretty features as she fingered the picture of him standing beside the crate, clearly reluctant to continue the story. "Yes, but you weren't the one to rescue her. You distracted the man, her father."

"So it was a little girl?"

She nodded. "Skinny child, brown hair, wearing overalls. I remember her. She was terrified."

"You didn't draw her," Elliot pointed out.

"I couldn't see enough detail. I couldn't see her father at all. Just his hands, one around her neck and the other holding a gun." She was rocking in her seat, a note of urgency in her voice.

It sounded like quite a lot of detail to him, more than most eyewitnesses would recall. He supposed she was just including it to make her story more compelling, but he didn't call her on it yet. He wanted to keep her talking to see if she would say something to reveal herself.

"It's all right, Veronica," he soothed her. "I can tell you're upset. It upsets me to see children in distress, too."

She smiled, and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue from the box that was still on the table. "Your partner, that beautiful young woman, she saved the girl," she said quietly.

"And the girl's father?" Elliot asked.

Veronica tapped the last picture in the series. "He shot you. That's when your partner shot him."

"Are you sure he killed me, Veronica?" Elliot coaxed. "I might have just been wounded."

She gave him a look of unspeakable, desolate sadness. Opening her portfolio, she took out yet another sheet of paper and slid the drawing, face down, across the table to him.

He took a deep breath, determined not to fall apart this time, and turned the picture over. The detail was such that he could almost smell the fresh earth, feel the warmth of the sun. His mind automatically filled in the colors of the grass and the sky for him.

It was a beautiful spring day, a light breeze barely stirring the new, golden-green leaves of the willows. Kathy sat in the middle of the row of chairs, Maureen to her left and Kathleen to her right. Each of the girls was holding one of the twins; they needed the comfort and security even though they were really too big to climb into anyone's lap anymore. Olivia sat beside Maureen, and his mother-in-law was to Kathleen's right. Behind them, stood the captain flanked by Munch, Fin, and Cassidy on one side, Huang, Jeffries, and Casey Novak on the other. All of the cops were in full dress uniforms. The casket was draped with the American flag, one marine standing at each end of it and another standing along side of it. A fourth stood a little way away, bugle to his lips. Father McKay, his parish priest, was making the Sign of the Cross.

Elliot studied the picture for a long, long time as if he was trying to memorize every detail. Then he sighed, slid the drawing in place to complete the story, looked at Veronica. Tears were streaming down her face as if she had just lost a dear friend.

"I'm done," he said with almost no emotion. "If you're working for somebody you might as well tell him to grow some _cojones_ and come after me himself, because I'm through with this crap."

"Wh-what do you mean?" she sniffled.

"Lady, I don't know who you are, and I don't know why you decided to pick on me, but I'm done playing games," Elliot said, sounding less than interested in the conversation.

"This is _real_," she gasped. Barely controlling her sobs. "I'm _not_ playing games."

"Not buying it!" He taunted. "You came in here, acting all mysterious, thinking you were going to poke a stick at a hornets' nest and get things all stirred up."

"No . . ." she mouthed. Not able to give the word voice.

"And you thought you were gonna make me lose it, which I did, for a while," he granted her that much.

"But, once you went over the top with this, there was no coming back, and you lost all credibility," he explained.

"Please, Elliot!"

"Veronica, or whatever-the-hell your name is, I'm bored," he told her. "Find somebody else to fuck with."

He stood up and exited the room, pausing in the door to make a show of calling out, "Cap, what's next?"

Veronica slumped over, resting her head on the table, and sobbed.

vvvvvvv

"Give her an hour," Elliot said. "Then we'll see what she has to say."

"If you haven't completely alienated her," Huang said, his voice revealing a rare moment of frustration.

"Look, Doc, she isn't giving me anything," Elliot reasoned. "If she thinks she has lost her captive audience, she might just look for someone else to peddle her fantasies to. Then you can go in there, be your compassionate, sympathetic self, or Liv can sit and cry with her, I don't know, but maybe she'll spill her guts to one of you. Meanwhile, the rest of us are gonna go through the old cases and see if we can find her, or the freak she's working with, or anyone who has anything to do with Price Chopper."

Huang nodded reluctantly, not so much because he agreed with the plan, but because he had been given no other choice.


	8. Information

**Chapter Eight: Information **

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**10:04 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"If you ask me how I know Elliot, I'm not talking to you," Veronica said petulantly before George had even closed the door behind him.

"Ok," he said with a warm smile and took a seat.

She looked at him suspiciously and said, "Don't ask me how I knew to come here, either. I said before, I just knew. I felt like I had to come. It's really rather frightening, and I wish all of you would just believe me."

"I believe you," George said, and he was rewarded with a smile.

He smiled back, and got an angry frown in return.

"How dare you mock me!" she accused, and opened her portfolio to begin a new sketch.

George placed his hand over hers to prevent her from drawing. Her skin was cool to the touch.

"Let's be honest with each other, Veronica. May I call you Veronica, or would you prefer Miss Austin?"

"It's Ms. Austin, actually," she corrected him, pulling her hand away and closing the portfolio. "I reverted to my maiden name after my husband was killed in the war last Christmas. I feel like I've betrayed Matt, but Mother and Father have always thought I married beneath my station. Now that my son and I are dependent on them, I have to appease them somehow. Calling myself Veronica Austin lets them think they still control me."

"I see," George said, surprised that this stubborn woman would surrender to her parents' whims on the one hand and impressed with the way she used their own elitist ideas against them on the other. Most women would probably just get a job and do their best to get by, but if her mother and father could afford to support her, he could understand why a recent widow would prefer to stay home with her child.

Sincerely, he told her, "I'm very sorry for your loss."

Privately, he thought there was a strong likelihood that the loss of her husband combined with the pressure from her parents to forget about him had been the catalyst that initiated her stalking of Elliot. Despite his recent marital trouble, the detective was an archetypal alpha-male, a good provider and protector, who radiated strength and masculinity. It was obvious why a grieving woman would latch on to him, but if that was the case, the question now was _how _had she found him?

"Thank you," she said. "At least I understand the need for sacrifice. Nathan is only thirteen, and he's just devastated."

The psychiatrist in him knew he needed to stay with the interview to try and analyze Veronica. Captain Cragen was watching from the other side of the mirrored glass, and in just a moment there would be a detective looking into the military casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan to see if any of them fit into Veronica's story. Elliot himself would probably contact his children to find out if they knew Nathan. Still, the federal agent part of him was itching to check the information out himself. He wasn't competitive by nature, but in less than a minute, he had gotten more out of Veronica than Elliot and Munch had in their entire interviews and thought he might like the opportunity to gloat just the tiniest bit.

Into the silence, she said, "You may call me Veronica if you tell me your name."

Wanting her to trust him, he gave her his most encouraging smile. "My name is George."

"All right, George," she turned very businesslike, apparently not wanting to dwell on her grief, "as you suggested, let's be honest."

He raised his eyebrows, a clear 'I'm listening,' expression, and waited for her to continue.

"You _don't _believe me," she challenged him. "In fact, the others probably sent you in here to ferret out some truth that they all think I'm hiding. Am I right?"

George inclined his head affirmatively. So, she wasn't delusional, but she could be a sociopath. As long as she didn't turn violent, he could play her game for a while longer.

"You have to admit, it is pretty farfetched," he told her.

"I know, but if I wanted to lie to you, don't you think I would have come up with something a bit more clever?"

With a shrug, he replied, "If you're lying, it's hard to say. I guess it would depend upon your ulterior motives and just how clever you are."

"We'll I'm certainly intelligent enough to think of something better than trying to convince you that I'm clairvoyant," she said.

"I suppose you are," he agreed. "But I'm more interested in the possibility that you might be telling the truth."

"But . . . But you just admitted that you didn't believe me," she stammered.

Years of training allowed George to suppress the smug grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth when he succeeded in taking her by surprise.

"Well, 'believe' is a very emotionally charged word," he said. "As an investigator, it is difficult for me to 'believe' anything for which there is no empirical evidence. But I am capable of intellectually accepting what you say as given in order to further my inquiry."

She frowned and asked a little uncertainly, "You mean, you'll take me at my word for the sake of argument, is that it?"

"Exactly," he nodded.

"Why would you do that?"

"Well, because there is so much more I want to know, but if I wait for you to prove to me that you really can foretell Elliot's future, it'll probably be too late." If she was even a little narcissistic his curiosity about would draw her into the conversation.

"Very well, then, what do you want to know?"

He gave her a cordial smile, though he really wanted to grin. He knew he no longer had to prove himself to the detectives he worked with, but once in a while it felt good to show them that, besides being a top-notch profiler, he was also a pretty damned good interrogator.

"Why you, for example?" he asked. "Elliot has a wife and kids, friends and colleagues here who respect him and value his friendship. Why would you, a complete stranger who would otherwise never have missed him, be gifted with this special knowledge that could save his life?"

"I don't know," Veronica shrugged.

"If you did know, what would you say?" Huang liked using that question. It was a trick he had learned from one of his university instructors: Accept that the subject did not know the answer and then pressure her to respond anyway. It was irritating, but a person would usually reply, and it was often surprising how much the individual actually did know.

She scowled at him briefly, then tapped her pencil tip down onto the tabletop. As she thought about her answer, she slid her fingers down toward the point, let the pencil pivot between her fingers so that the eraser end tapped against the table, and then repeated the process.

"I guess, maybe, precisely because I _don't_ know him," she finally said.

"What do you mean?" He asked feeling a little confused.

"Well, anyone who knows him, who knows what kind of work he does, is likely to worry about him."

Tap and slide, pivot. Tap and slide, pivot.

George nodded.

"It would be easy for one of them to ignore something like this as the product of an overactive imagination, but because I _don't_ know him . . ."

Tap, slide, and pivot. Tap, slide, and pivot.

George nodded again.

"I wouldn't have any reason to worry about him if it weren't for the pictures I saw in my head. I guess, whatever . . . power did . . . this to me knew it would be harder to shrug off coming from a stranger."

George nodded again thoughtfully, trying to hide his disappointment that his plan had backfired. With Veronica's next sentence, things only went from bad to worse.

"Elliot said that was why he believed me," she responded sadly. "But I guess the last picture was too much for him, too real. It's hard to face your own mortality, I suppose."

"I would imagine so," George agreed, trying to hide his frustration that in trying to explode her fantasy, he had only helped her to become more entrenched in it.

"Is he still all right?" Veronica asked anxiously. "They haven't let him leave, have they?"

"The last I saw him, he was busy with some paperwork at his desk," George told her. "He isn't going anywhere for a while."

He was curious to know why she was so intent on having Elliot stay in the precinct tonight, and he'd already thought of a way to work it into the conversation.

Veronica visibly relaxed a little at that news.

"May I ask you another question?" George requested.

Veronica inclined her head, silently giving her permission.

"Why Elliot?"

At her quizzical look, he elaborated. "I am sure there are a lot of people in the city tonight who are going to have tragic, if not fatal, experiences. Why has Elliot been singled out for this special protection? With billions of people on the planet, why not someone half a world away?"

"He's a good man," Veronica said as if it should be obvious, which it was, but that wasn't sufficient for George.

"Bad things happen to good people all the time," he argued.

"He's been through a rough patch," she told him. "He deserves a break."

"Again, that's true for lot of people."

"I don't know then!" Veronica snapped. "Maybe he has a guardian angel."

"Who would that be, you?"

"Not very likely," she snorted inelegantly and shook her head.

"Then who?"

"I don't know."

"If you did know, who would it be?" He really pressed her for an explanation hoping that when she couldn't think of one, she'd have to admit that it was all just a fantasy. Then, he would be able to help her locate the resources that would assist her in coping with her loss.

"Maybe his dad?" she offered uncertainly.

George wondered who would get the unenviable task of looking into Elliot's father's history. Earlier it was obvious that the detective didn't want anyone asking questions about that, but the fact that Veronica had mentioned him a second time made it a viable avenue of inquiry. Someone would have to see if the late Officer Stabler had any connection to Veronica Austin.

"That's the second time tonight you mentioned Elliot's dad. Why? Do you know him?"

"He's . . . dead," she replied in mild confusion. "I don't know him, but . . . I know he's sorry for . . . what he did to Elliot."

"What did he do?" George knew he was pushing the limits, not only with Veronica, but, if Elliot was watching, with his friend as well.

Veronica looked like she had a dilemma now. What and how much did she need to reveal to keep the conversation going without losing her advantage? George tried not to hold his breath as he waited for her to decide.

Finally, she shook her head. "It's not my place to tell you," she said.

"Veronica, I'm his friend. I'm only here because I am trying to help you help him. The more I know the more help I can be."

Again, she was struggling to make a decision. He was content to give her all the time she needed. With the military information, her husband and son's first names, and her comments about what Elliot's dad had done, he had already opened three new areas for the squad to investigate. The longer he kept her talking, the better their chances of learning something useful.

"I know you mean well, but I can't. It's irrelevant anyway. I can only tell you that Elliot was deeply wounded by something his dad did. They're both ashamed of it, but for different reasons. Maybe someday, if he chooses to discuss it with you, you can show him a little extra compassion. Please don't ask me any more about it."

"Ok," George agreed. "We'll just assume that Elliot has a guardian angel looking out for him and that it could be his father trying to atone for something. Is that the sense you're getting?"

His words sounded absurd to his own ears, and he knew, if Munch was behind the mirror, he would laughing, but as long as Veronica accepted it, the conversation would keep moving and he might get more information from her.

Veronica shrugged. "It's possible."

"How did you know his dad was dead?"

The look she gave him asked, 'Are we _really_ going to do this _again_?'

George grinned. "Let me guess. You just know it."

She nodded, the expression on her face telling him that she had nothing more to say about the matter. Apparently it was still too soon to get her to admit she'd been stalking the detective, but that was all right. George had time.

"All right then, why here?" he asked, working his way back to the matter he had been wondering about earlier.

"Because this is where he works," Veronica used a tone that implied any idiot should have realized her reason for coming to the squad.

"Naturally, but couldn't he go home? Wouldn't he be safer there?"

She shook her head and explained uncertainly, "If he went home . . . he'd be alone. He'd die alone. He has to stay here."

"Is he in danger at his house, Veronica?"

"Only if he's called away, but if he goes home, he _will_ be called away . . . because he is closer. He must stay here."

"What will he be closer to?"

"The place where he will die," she said. "But if he stays here . . . If he stays here, he isn't closer and you can send someone else."

"But will that person die?"

"No, because they're not him."

"How do you know he's closer at home?"

"Look at my picture," she said, turning the sketch of Elliot entering the warehouse around where she could see it. In the background George could see the distinctive silhouette of the Manhattan skyline from across the East River. His eyes were automatically drawn to the sad, empty spot where the Twin Towers used to be.

"How did you know he doesn't live in Manhattan?"

Veronica puffed out an exasperated breath of air. "I just know," she said. "I know where he lives, I know he works here, I know Kathleen is in trouble, I know Maureen changed her major, I know about the divorce, and I know he's going to die if he leaves here tonight. _I just know!_"

Her frustration was a small victory for George. If he could keep chipping away at her confidence, questioning the source of her information, eventually she might realize how ridiculous it sounded and have to admit she'd been stalking Elliot.

He wondered what had set her off today. If she had been stalking him for a long time, why did she suddenly need to make contact with her quarry now?

"Why now?" he asked her as if the thought had just occurred to him.

"What do you mean, why now?" Veronica asked in surprise. "It's going to happen tonight. If he leaves here tonight he will die. _That's _why now!"

"But like you said, he's been through a rough patch lately."

It was an understatement, George knew, but he didn't want to give Veronica any details that she might not already have. In the past year or so, the guy had been held hostage twice, shot, had a meltdown and beat the living hell out of his former partner, saw his daughter busted for DUI, finalized his divorce, and lost his partner of seven years for a few weeks. It was a wonder he could get out of bed and come to work in the morning after all he'd been through!

"Why didn't you rescue him from any of his other hardships?"

Veronica glowered at him as if he were an idiot trying her patience.

"He survived that awful man in the factory, that boy with the gun in the courtroom, and the brute who hid that little girl in the box," Veronica told him and he tried not to show his surprise, "but he won't walk away from this. If he leaves this place tonight, he _will_ die. I saw it as clearly as I see you sitting here. _Please_, don't let him leave."

George frowned. He was dismayed by the amount of information she seemed to have about Elliot. Somehow, having her know things about his work that the police hadn't released to the public was even more disturbing than what she knew about his private life and his family. He knew Cragen would get a detective to check with IAB and the Public Information Office to see if anything about those events had been accessed recently, but he suspected he knew what Veronica's explanation would be.

"How do you know about those things?" George asked her, hoping he sounded more curious than rattled. "That information wasn't released to the papers."

"The same way I know everything else I know about the man," Veronica said in frustration. "_I just saw it!_"

"I see." He traced a pattern on the tabletop with his index finger for a moment, noticed his hand was shaking, and stopped. He had the sudden feeling that there was something terribly wrong about this interview. Except for Veronica's claim that she had foreseen Elliot's death, she seemed perfectly rational. He hadn't spotted any cues that she was lying, and he still couldn't identify any underlying pathology. She didn't seem to bear any malice against Elliot, but to know what she did about his recent cases, she had to have someone inside the department helping her, and that was worrisome.

She had been surprisingly free with her personal information. If it was the truth, either she wanted to be caught and was giving them the details they needed to do it, or she wanted to frustrate them, show them she was smarter than they were, and was telling them just enough to drive them crazy. If it was false, he had either underestimated her abilities as a liar and an actress or overestimated his own skills as a psychiatrist, and he didn't like the implications of either of those possibilities.

And he especially didn't like what any of it meant for Elliot Stabler.

**Author's Note: **For anyone who noticed, I realize the dates of this chapter don't fall in line with some of the TV episode allusions. It's all Scrawler and Belinda's fault. I never intended to write this chapter, but they each independently mentioned that they'd like to see George's interview with Veronica. And that person who offered to bribe me--I'm still waiting for my Toll House cookies! You know who you are! J Since great minds do think alike, I decided to bow to their greatness and write it. I don't usually do requests, but I thought this one was worth exploring if only to flap the unflappable Huang.

Bad news, there might be another delay between this and my next post. Good news, that's because this chapter has spawned another one that I never intended to write. (Of course that could be good news then bad news, depending on whether you are enjoying the story. Then again, if you're not, I supposed you have stopped by now.)


	9. Frustration

**Chapter Nine: Frustration**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**10:48 P.M., March 15, 2006**

George stood up and crossed to the coffee machine in the corner of the interview room. He wasn't sure exactly when or how he'd gotten so confounded, but he knew he needed a moment to regroup.

"Would you like some coffee?" he offered, pouring a cup as he spoke.

"I'm fine, thanks," Veronica replied, "but you go ahead."

"You're a smart lady," George said. "It's probably been sitting here since the dayshift started at eight this morning."

He took his time and made a great show of doctoring the beverage with sugar and creamer, tasting it, and sweetening it some more. As he stirred each of the additions into his cup, he considered his next move.

Veronica had been surprisingly forthcoming about her personal information, only becoming vague and resistant when he asked her about Elliot. Maybe it was time to forget about the detective altogether. If he could get enough personal data on her, they would be able to find out what she had to do with Elliot and know what to do about her.

"You know, it's interesting that you see things in so much detail," he began, wanting to talk first about the very thing that she claimed had brought her to the squad. "From what I understand, most psychics just get vague impressions of future events."

"I'm not psychic," Veronica insisted. "As I have already told you, this has never happened to me before."

"So you did," George remembered, "and that brings me back to my previous question, why now, or, more precisely, why _you_ now?"

"I don't understand," she said. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you've never had visions before. Why would you start now? What is different about you compared to how you were, yesterday, last week, or three months ago?" He wanted her to talk about her husband more on the chance that they would be able to identify her through him, but he didn't want to be too obvious about it.

"I don't know, but I have had visions before," Veronica reminded him. "This is just the first time I have ever felt compelled to do more than draw them."

"Of course you have, that's right. I'm sorry," George responded as if he truly had forgotten. "Have you ever suffered from compulsive behavior before?"

"Suffered from it?" She shook her head. "I wouldn't say I've suffered, but I do have the occasional bout of insomnia that only goes away when I get an image out of my head and onto paper."

"I see, and do you usually work like you have been today, for hours on end producing large numbers of drawings in a short time? Do you often work for hours or days at a time and then just quit for long periods?" History was riddled with artists and geniuses who demonstrated bipolar tendencies.

"Are you mad?" she asked in an amused and mildly offended tone. "I have a son to raise. I don't have time to spend my whole day drawing. I am only here because these are very unusual circumstances."

"I'm sorry," George apologized. "I didn't mean anything by it. I'm just trying to get a better sense of who you are. It might help me figure out the source of these visions you're having."

"Well, that's all well and good," she told him a bit sarcastically, "but what will it do to keep Elliot safe? He's why I'm here."

"Well, if I can explain things in a way that he will understand, he might be more inclined to take you seriously."

"Try this," Veronica commanded leaning close. "If he leaves here tonight, he will die. If he stays, he will live to fight another day. Even if he doesn't believe me, it's better safe than sorry, isn't it?"

George nodded. "I can't imagine how he could argue with that," he said, "and I know the other detectives have pointed it out to him already." He was sure it had occurred to someone to mention it, even if it was just Munch being sarcastically facetious.

They were silent for a while. Veronica sat staring at her fingers while they played with her pencil, and George sat staring at Veronica. Eventually she looked up and started slightly to find the doctor watching her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.

He laughed slightly. "I'm trying to understand you."

"Understand me?"

"Yes. You are compelled to draw, and I am compelled to understand why people do what they do. I'm trying to understand why you have to do these sketches and why you couldn't stop yourself from coming here today." He went still for a moment as if debating whether to say what he was thinking.

"You know," he finally began reluctantly, not wanting to be so obvious about her husband, but not sure at the moment how else to get the details from her, "emotional trauma can often make people more compulsive and prone to delusions, hallucinations, and visions. Losing your husband must have been, most likely still is, very painful."

"You think I'm delusional?" she asked in a shocked, accusatory tone. "Do you think I'm hallucinating a threat to the life of a man I don't even know? Who's crazy now?"

"I don't think you're crazy, Veronica," he told her gently, "but his death has probably affected you in ways you don't even know. How was he killed?"

She was quiet for a long time, but the sympathetic look in his eyes finally encouraged her to speak.

"Matt had a Christmas Eve mission behind enemy lines," she said in a flat tone that sounded as if she had learned to use it to distance herself from the pain. "One lucky shot hit his fuel tank. He tried to make it back, but he ran out of gas over the water. For some reason, he failed to eject. The fuel vapors that remained in the tank ignited on impact and he went up in a ball of flame before the debris sank to the ocean floor. I didn't even get a body to bury."

"That must have been very difficult for you and your son," George sympathized.

She shrugged. "Like I said earlier, I understand that we all must make sacrifices in times like these, but Nathan?" She shook her head. "All my son knows is that he is going to grow up without a father."

"Surely your parents will help," George encouraged her, despite knowing that often, that was not the case. "Your father will take an interest in his own grandchild, won't he?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will," Veronica agreed, "but Nathan is just like Matthew. He has a strongly defined sense of right and wrong. There are no shades of gray in that boy's eyes. My father, on the other hand, has a shining public façade, but he's like a beautiful old building with a bad case of termites. He has plenty of money and power, has all the right friends, and is involved in all the right causes, but he's hardly what you would consider an honorable man. Nathan has no respect for him at all, nor do I."

"So you are pretty much on your own, then," George commented.

She gave a bitter laugh. "My parents provide us with somewhere to live and plenty to eat, an allowance for personal items and entertainment, and sufficient funds for Nathan's schooling, but when it comes to teaching him the values his father and I want him to adhere to, yes, I am alone. I am very fortunate to have a good relationship with my son, and even luckier that he worshipped Matt. It gives me a solid foundation to build on."

"Still, it would be easier if you had someone to help you, another honorable man like your husband, perhaps?" George raised his eyebrows as he made the comment, hoping his words would strike a chord.

"I beg your pardon? My husband has been gone less than three months! Who are you to suggest that I move on so soon?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," George said evenly. "I'm just surprised the thought hasn't occurred to you."

Veronica's frown deepened and then sudden understanding lit her face. "_Shame_ on you!" she snapped, her fury making George jump slightly. "Is that why you think I'm here? You're insane!"

"The military has services to help surviving family members cope after a loss like yours, Veronica," he tried to soothe her now that she had made the connection. "If you like, I can help you contact them."

"Listen to yourself!" she railed at him. "First of all, I loved my husband! I am not going to run out and replace him like he was some . . . some wayward servant I had to fire!"

"I wasn't implying anything like that," George tried to explain.

"Yes, you were," she told him angrily. "Look, why don't you stop worrying about me and see what you can do to save your friend's life. That's why I came here. If I need . . . help, I have other people I can turn to."

"Who, your parents?" He made a point of sounding like he had tried, and failed, to keep the disdain out of his voice.

"No, friends," she snapped. "And it's none of your business who they are! Now, if you're the friend _you_ claim to be, you'll leave me alone and go check on Elliot!"

George wasn't sure what to do. He had finished his prepared questions, and he had pissed off Veronica enough that he wasn't going to get much more out of her if he didn't back off for a while. He needed some time to regroup once again and find out what the squad had learned from the information he had wheedled out of her. Once he had a few answers, he would have a better idea of what to ask next. Giving her some time to stew over the implications of her obsession with Elliot could also help his cause. Once she realized that something was not right about her behavior, he could use that to probe deeper, find out how she had latched on to Elliot and what she intended for the future. He was certain that, given how much time and energy she had devoted to stalking the detective, she would have a plan for when she finally caught him.

Deciding to use her request as a cue to make a graceful exit, he nodded. "All right then, if you'll excuse me, I'll go talk to him now."

"Please, do," she said brusquely. "And make sure he stays here tonight."

vvvvvvv

"Nothing?" George echoed in shock his, voice rising to an unnaturally high pitch on the one disbelieving word. "What do you mean, nothing? I got you more information in one interview than the rest of you uncovered _all night_ and you still came up with _nothing_? What have you people been _doing_ out here?"

"Well, Munch, Fin, and I were shooting craps in the men's room while Olivia skipped out to have her nails done and the Captain was playing some online game," Elliot quipped sarcastically.

George suddenly understood the detective's sometimes too-frequent need to yell, throw things, and beat the hell out of people and inanimate objects. He rounded on Elliot.

"How can you of _all_ people stand there and crack jokes?" he asked. To a stranger he would have seemed merely surprised, but to those who knew him well, his tone revealed an uncharacteristically high level of irritation. "This is your family she's messing with."

Elliot stepped forward and towered over the smaller man. Getting right in his face he asked in a deceptively calm tone, "Do you think I don't know that?"

To his credit, the doctor didn't give an inch. "The fact that you can joke about it makes me wonder," he said.

Elliot tensed and leaned in closer. George must have known he had pushed it too far, but he didn't back down. In fact, he stood up straighter. He might not be as big and strong as the detective, but if Elliot took a swing at him he was capable of defending himself.

"Ok, that's enough, you two," Cragen said, stepping up to stand close to the two men.

After another mutual glare, Elliot and Huang each took a couple of steps back.

"Doc, we've checked out everything you got us," Cragen said. "I had an old friend in the air force run down the names of all U.S. pilots killed in action since we went after Bin Laden. No Matt or Matthew with any family in the area."

"It's not like you're working with a bunch of academy recruits here, you know," Elliot grumbled softly.

George cut him a sullen look and said, "Yeah. Sorry about that. It's just that with everything she gave us, we should be able to figure out who she is by now."

Elliot shook his head. "I called my wife and kids. None of them knows a Nathan who fits our story."

"And I just got off the phone with IAB," Munch said. "I feel like I need a shower, but they say they have released no information on the cases she mentioned."

"Are you sure?" Huang asked.

"Well, nobody here has any love for the rat squad," Munch told him, though it went without saying, "but I doubt even they would jerk us around when we have some freak stalking one of our detectives and his family."

"Maybe she's lying to you," Fin suggested.

Huang shook his head. "I didn't get that from her," he said. "It might not be true, but she believes what she's saying."

"Yeah, or she's a really good liar," Elliot interjected.

Huang turned on him testily, offended that his judgment was being questioned even thought he'd already had the same thought himself. "So, what do _you_ want to do, assume everything's a lie and forget about checking it out?"

"Well, it would take a hell of a lot less time and accomplish just as much!" Elliot responded in a heated tone.

George took a step back, disappointed in himself for getting so agitated. It was out of character for him, but he was frustrated to think that everything he had uncovered had amounted to nothing.

He took a deep breath and apologized to Elliot. "Look, I'm sorry, I really am. We don't need to be arguing."

Elliot nodded, again accepting the apology, knowing that all of their nerves were a bit strained. "It's all right," he said. "Me, too. You know, she _was_ right on the money about those cases she mentioned."

Looking at Elliot, Olivia asked, "What does she know about your dad? Could he be the connection?"

Giving her a shuttered look, he said tersely, "No."

It was obviously a sore spot, and even if it was the key, Elliot wasn't ready to discuss it right now, so when Olivia opened her mouth to speak again and looked like she was about to pursue the matter, Huang interrupted her.

"What we need to do is find out who she is and what she wants and keep you and your family safe in the meantime," he said. "What would you be doing tonight if you weren't here?"

Elliot shrugged. "Go home, eat some dinner, call my kids, nothing exciting."

"No chance that you'd be interfering with anyone's plans?"

Elliot shook his head. "My life isn't exactly a thrill a minute, Doc."

"So that's another dead end," Fin said as if he were checking off a list in his mind.

"We're talking about my life here," Elliot grumbled slightly. "Could you find another metaphor, maybe something that doesn't include the word _dead_?"

Fin gave him a devilish smile. "Sorry. Didn't realize what I was saying."

"Yeah, right."

Fin managed a wounded look, but there was an amused glint in his eye.

"Maybe she doesn't want to keep you from going home," Fin suggested. "Maybe she wants to keep you here."

Elliot gave his suggestion a dismissive look. "What for?"

"I dunno," Fin admitted. "It was just a thought."

"Maybe we should think about it a little longer," Cragen said. "Our shifts all ended, what, six hours ago? What if Elliot isn't even her target? What if someone else in the squad is, or maybe the whole squad? I think it's pretty clear as soon as you walk in here that we take care of our own. Screw with one of us, and you take on all of us. Anybody else have plans they had to cancel tonight?"

Elliot felt warmed by the captain's words. The squad truly did follow the credo of all for one and one for all. Even when his family abandoned him, his colleagues had stood by him. He almost laughed as one by one, each of them shook their heads. He wasn't the only one with no social life.

"Then what could be accomplished by keeping us all busy here tonight?" Cragen asked.

"Is everybody up to date on their paperwork?" Liv asked. Not long ago, she'd narrowly avoided contempt charges by pulling back-to-back all-nighters to finish the paperwork on a case. By the second morning, she had been so exhausted that Elliot had to proofread for her while she caught an hour's sleep in the crib and a shower before she ran the file over to the court.

One after another, everyone nodded. She made a face and said, "I hate you all."

"Please tell me nobody has files at home," Cragen pleaded.

No one did.

"Maybe we need to search the office," Munch said.

"For what?" Fin asked, automatically challenging his partner's paranoia.

Munch began enumerating items, counting them off on his fingers as he went. "Listening devices, video surveillance, missing files and evidence, planted files and evidence, explosives, chemical and biological weapons. There's no telling who might have put what where while we were all busy running down the leads we got from Veronica."

Fin made a sour face and said, "Man, just because you don't sleep at night doesn't mean the rest of us need to stay up and worry about who is out to get us."

"But he does have a point," Liv said.

"I know," Fin conceded, "that's what pisses me off."

"Ok," Cragen said, "you each take your own desks and lockers and then divide the rest of our office space amongst yourselves. I'll take care of my own office."

vvvvvvv

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**11:26 P.M., March 15, 2006**

"Well?" Cragen asked as the group gathered once more. Huang worked out of a federal office building, so he had helped by corralling a few junior detectives and uniformed officers and heading up the dreaded task of searching the toilets, workout room, showers, and interview rooms.

"Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch," came the responses.

"Me either," Don sighed. Turning to Huang, he asked, "What kind of read did you get on Veronica anyway? Why do you think she targeted Elliot to begin with?"

Huang crossed his arms and shrugged. "She's lost her husband, the father of her son, and she's looking for a replacement. She needs someone to love her, to make her feel safe, to help her stand up to her parents, and somewhere along the line she bumped into Elliot and decided he would be the perfect man."

Elliot laughed bitterly. "Maybe she can have a talk with Kathy."

George smiled a little sadly. The divorce had been very difficult on his friend, and though he would never say so in front of the others, he knew Elliot still mourned the loss of his family.

"She probably would if you asked her," he said. "Right now, her only concern seems to be your welfare."

Elliot just laughed slightly and shook his head. "So what do we do now?"

George unwittingly mimicked his behavior with a laugh and a shake of the head. "I guess we just keep doing what we're doing and hope we stumble across something. I'll give her a little more time to think about things and then see if she will talk to me some more."

"You know," Munch said, "there is one possibility that we haven't considered yet."

"What's that?"

"That she is exactly what she seems," he offered.

"Well, I guess that's possible," Huang said a little sarcastically, "if you want to accept that she's a psychic who just happens to have had visions of Elliot's death and knew how to find him without ever having met him before."

"Come on, Munch, you know better than that," Elliot snapped. "Remember Sebastian Ballantine or whatever the hell his real name was. At least he was a convincing fraud. This girl is just a fraud."

Munch held up his hands and said, "Ok, ok, don't kill the messenger. It's just an idea I wanted to put out there."

"Yeah, well, it was a bad one."

Looking over his glasses at Elliot, John said, "You know, she did have a point when she was in there talking to the Doc. It's better safe than sorry. Maybe you should stick around here for the night."

"Oh, no way," Elliot replied. "I do that and she gets exactly what she wanted."

"Seems to me she's already gotten it," Munch said. "You're wife and kids are scared shitless under armed police guard, and we're here going crazy trying to figure out who the hell she is and why she's here."

The group exchanged uneasy glances. Munch did have a point, but none of them knew what to do about it. One by one, they drifted apart, going back to what they had been doing before Huang finished the interview. Despite his anxiety, Elliot was touched to see that none of them took advantage of the opportunity to go home now that they seemed to have nothing left to investigate.


	10. Call

**Chapter Ten: Call**

**16th Precinct**

**Manhattan SVU**

**11:57 P.M., March 15, 2006**

Elliot rubbed his tired eyes and took another gulp of coffee. It was nearing midnight and none of them had found even the faintest hint of a lead on Veronica's true identity. Munch and Fin had already taken their turns in the crib, and he knew that when they returned, they would urge Olivia and him to grab thirty, too. What they didn't know, and he wouldn't tell them, was that, even though it was nearly midnight, he was still too spooked to sleep.

He slumped back in his chair and stuck his pen in his mouth. His eyes blurred on the page he was reading as he became lost in thought. Those drawings were too real. He'd never seen anything more true to life. It was as if each of them was a moment in time, frozen on the page. And he couldn't figure out why, when she seemed to know how pissed off he still was at his dad for dying before they could settle things, she would choose to put his birth date on the crate in the drawing just before the one that showed his own death.

The ringing of a telephone invaded his thoughts. Jumping, he pulled the pen from his mouth and grabbed the receiver.

"Stabler, SVU."

"Detective Stabler, this is Madeline Burris. Do you remember me?" The woman sounded frantic.

"Yes, of course I do," he assured her. They'd closed the Burris case not a month ago. Madeline and her husband Ted were going through a nasty divorce. Madeline had gotten full custody of their daughter, Nikki, because of Ted's drinking and depression. Elliot had sympathized with Ted a little, realizing the guy's problems were only getting worse because of the divorce and loss of contact with his child, but he knew, just like Madeline, that he had to put Nikki's well-being first. When Ted had abducted the child and ran 'all the way' back to his mother's house on Staten Island, he'd arrested the guy, counseled him to get treatment, and pushed Casey to show some leniency as long as he stayed sober.

"Elliot, you can't leave!" Veronica called across the squad room as she came flying out of the hall that led back to the area where they had been holding her.

"Ted's drunk. He showed up with a gun and took Nikki. I didn't know who else to call!" Madeline said urgently on the other end of the phone line.

Snatching a tablet out of his desk, he started taking notes. He jotted down the time on the phone's digital clock, 11:58, knowing he would need it for his case file later.

"Did you call 911?" he asked.

"No, not yet."

"Please, send someone else," Veronica pleaded in a desperate whisper.

"Ok, Mrs. Burris, Madeline, don't hang up," he said urgently, making eye contact with Olivia. When she nodded, he told Madeline, "I've got someone doing that now. Are you at your house?"

"Yes."

He looked to a passing officer and gestured for the young man to take Veronica away. She started to struggle, but Elliot ignored her now that she was out of his line of vision. He nodded to Liv, and she placed a call, craning her neck to read the information he was scrawling down for her to relay to the dispatcher.

"And do you know where he took Nikki?"

"Well, you know, the warehouse where he used to work is just down the street. He didn't start drinking until they closed down. I saw him carry her in there."

"Elliot, no!" Veronica shouted as Huang came into the room and a junior detective moved to help him and the officer restrain her.

Standing up, Elliot pushed his chair in. "Ok, Madeline, don't follow them. I'm on my way, and someone will be right there to secure the warehouse. You understand? Just go inside and lock the door!"

When he was convinced she would do as he told her, he tossed the receiver in the cradle, snatched his jacket off the back of the chair, and headed out the door, Olivia trailing just a step behind him.

"Elliot! Someone else can go!" Veronica called, breaking away from the three men who were struggling to restrain her without hurting her. She ran across the squad room and grabbed him by the wrist.

"I'll get the sedan," Olivia said, striding past them, confident that her partner would disentangle himself in a moment and catch up.

"It doesn't have to be you!" Veronica insisted.

"Yes it does," he told her, peeling her fingers from his arm as Huang and the junior detective pulled her away from him. "The guy knows me."

**Abandoned Warehouse**

**Long Island City, Queens**

**12:14 A.M., March 16, 2006**

"Ted, it's Elliot Stabler, remember me?"

He and Olivia were crouched outside on a loading dock, ready to enter the warehouse.

"What do you want?" the desperate man shouted over the sobbing of his terrified daughter. "You're gonna put me in jail again!"

"Nobody wants to do that, Ted. We just want you to get some help," Elliot called calmly.

There was an abandoned truck backed up to the dock on his left, and a grocery cart beside the door that he would have to maneuver around to enter the building. He didn't want to bump into the cart. It could make enough noise to startle Ted, and it was never a good idea to startle a distraught drunk with a gun.

"I haven't seen her in three months. _Three months! _And I came by tonight, just to read her a bedtime story, you know, and that _bitch_ wouldn't let me in!"

"I know what it's like, Ted," Elliot sympathized. "I get to see my kids two weekends a month and every other Wednesday. It's not easy, but this is a bad idea."

"Elliot!" Olivia whispered. He glanced at her and she pointed to the logo on the wall behind him. It was the Price Chopper circle of stars and axe.

"What do you want to do?" she whispered.

He frowned at her, knowing what she was referring to, unable to think of anything else himself, and he whispered back, "We can't leave her in there with him."

"I want to report my wife for neglect," Ted whined. "She didn't even give Nikki a bath tonight. She just put her to bed in her overalls!"

"We can discuss that as soon as you let Nikki go and put the gun down, Ted," Elliot called to him agreeably.

"There are other cops here," Liv reminded him.

"But we have a relationship with him."

"She's my kid too, and I have a right to see her!"

"I know that, Ted," Elliot shouted back, "but not to endanger her. Let her come out, and we can talk."

"You just try to take her away from me!" he dared them.

"Ow! Daddy!"

When he heard the child cry out, Elliot looked at his partner. "Let's go."

They crept into the building, quiet as mice. It was full of abandoned crates and shipping containers. When they reached a division in the aisles, he used hand signals to direct her around behind Ted while he continued up the passage. She frowned at him, reluctant to leave him, but they couldn't argue now, so she had to obey.

"Ted? Ted, listen to me," Elliot called calmly as he crept up on the area from which the man's voice seemed to originate. "Ted. Nobody wants to keep you from seeing Nikki. We just want you to get help so she won't have to be afraid of you anymore."

"No! You want to put me in jail so Madeline can run away with her."

"That's not true, Ted," Elliot called. "Trust me. I'm a father, too, I would never try to keep you from your daughter, but I'm not gonna let you hurt her, Ted."

The only light came through the filthy windows from the police cars parked outside, but Elliot was close enough to see the silhouettes of Ted and his daughter, and once in a while, when they turned a certain way, he could see their faces. Ted was deranged, and Nikki was terrified and obviously in pain. He was dragging her around by one of the straps on her bib overalls, but one of her curly brown pigtails had gotten caught up in his fist, too.

"Just go away and leave me alone!"

Suddenly there was a loud screech and a flutter of wings as an owl that had built its nest in the warehouse decided it was tired of the yelling and took off for its evening hunt. Ted started screaming incoherently and fired off three shots in the general direction of the disturbance, Nikki squealed in terror. Elliot quickly advanced, pressing himself as flat as possible to the crates on the right side of the aisle.

He finally got to the open area where he expected Ted to be, but everything was still. Dreading what he might find, he advanced slowly another foot or two and was surprised to discover that no one was there anymore. One more step, and there was the crack of gunfire, and the wooden container where his head had just been exploded into a million splinters. He hit the ground with a grunt. There was another shot, Ted yelled, Nikki screamed. Olivia ordered the child to run.

He heard other cops swarming the place, someone mirandizing Ted, Nikki crying for her mommy. Olivia called his name.

Suddenly, he realized the back of his head stung like bees were attacking it. Reaching up to assess the damage, he hissed when something sharp jabbed his palm, groaned when his hand came away wet and with the metallic smell of blood. Then he realized that what had happened. The splinters from the crate exploding inches from his head had embedded themselves in his scalp.

"Elliot!" Olivia's tone was more strident, veering into panic.

"Over here," he called, his voice weaker than he expected.

She was by his side in an instant, fussing and fretting over him, helping him sit up.

"Watch the head," he warned her as she reached out toward him, about to cradle the back of his skull to prevent him from whacking it on the crate as he sat back. She put her arm around his shoulders instead.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked.

"Ted's last shot hit the crate right behind me. Now I have chunks of it in my scalp."

Olivia hissed in sympathy. "Ouch."

"Yeah."

She shined her flashlight up to survey the damage to the crate and whistled. Then she played the beam further along the wood.

"Well, I'll be damned," she gasped.

"What?"

"See for yourself."

"Can't you tell me? I'm wounded here."

She held out a hand to help him up and said, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Allowing her to pull him to his feet for the second time that evening, he stood and turned to see what she thought was so astonishing. There, stenciled on the side of the crate, where his head _was_ when Ted fired at him, instead of where it _might have been_ if he hadn't taken that last step forward before the shots, were the numbers 071833.

They looked at each other, too amazed to show any expression. Then, Olivia pulled his arm around her shoulders, wrapped her arm around his waist, and led him out the waiting ambulance, to have his head examined.


	11. Search and Rescue

**Chapter Eleven: Search . . . and Rescue**

**16th Precinct**

**Special Victims Unit**

**2:41 A.M., March 16, 2006**

"How's the head?" Munch inquired as he came stumbling bleary-eyed into the squad room. Things had settled down there shortly after Elliot and Olivia had left, and once they had received word from Cragen that their colleagues were ok, he and Fin had both staggered off to the crib for another hour's sleep so they would be fit to drive home.

"Sore," Elliot replied, "but they got all the wood chips out without having to shave it so I can't complain. Thanks." He looked at John and then at his partner as she handed him a cup of coffee and so included them both in the word.

"Did they give you a shot of antibiotics?" Fin asked.

"Right in the ass," he nodded.

"Not an image I want in my head this late at night Stabler," Olivia quipped.

He grinned at her and said, "Admit it, Liv, you want my body."

"Pfft! As if. I get enough of looking at your ugly mug all day at work. Why would I want to see the other end, too?"

"I guess Veronica was wrong," Munch said.

Elliot and Olivia exchanged glances. They had agreed on the way back to the station that there was just no way they could explain all the events of the evening in an official report, so they decided together that it would be best not to tell anyone.

"I'm here, ain't I?" he asked instead.

"You know what yesterday was, don't you?" Munch asked, as if someone should. When he got blank looks all around, he told them, "The Ides of March."

Olivia nearly spewed her coffee at that, which got a smirk from Munch, but Elliot and Fin were still in the dark. Catching her breath, Olivia looked from one of them to the other and said, "Come on, you guys, the assassination of Julius Caesar."

Fin and Elliot were less than impressed.

"An ominous day indeed," John said portentously.

"Come on, John, you, the professional skeptic, don't believe in that clairvoyant crap and omens, do you?" she asked.

"If it's crap, why did the CIA spend over twenty million dollars between nineteen seventy and nineteen ninety-five to fund remote viewing programs to spy on the Soviets and other foreign powers?" Munch challenged them.

Elliot painfully, carefully scratched his head. "Uhh, to cover up something even more sinister and insidious?"

John opened his mouth as if to respond, and then closed it when he realized there was no response to what Elliot had said. To disagree would go against his nature as an obsessed conspiracy theorist. To agree would mean retracting the argument he had just made in support of psychic powers.

Fin smirked at his partner and said, "It's about time somebody shut you up."

John glowered at him, but he ignored it.

"So, how's it going with Veronica?" Liv asked. "Did she tell Huang anything useful?"

Fin shook his head. "About two minutes after you left, she stopped crying, smiled at him, said everything was going to be all right, and walked away. We didn't have anything to hold her on, so we couldn't stop her. I'm sorry, Elliot."

Elliot made a face and shook his head. "It's all right. If she's really that fixated on me, she'll turn up again. In twenty years, we never knew she was there. I don't think she's really dangerous."

"Well, that's a turnaround," Munch said.

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you get half a packing crate buried in your skull, I guess."

"Oh, hey!" Fin interjected, suddenly remembering something. "I never did figure out who she is, but get this. There's a mansion at East 67th Street and Fifth Avenue, in sight of Central Park called Austin House. Nobody by that name has lived there for over fifty years, but the last Mr. and Mrs. Austin to raise a family there had a daughter named Veronica."

"You're kidding me!" Elliot grinned in surprise.

"I'm serious as a heart attack," Fin told him, putting his mug on the corner of his desk to be rinsed when he returned to work in the morning. "Take care of yourself, Elliot, Liv. Both of you get some rest."

"Millie called back about the paper," John said while Fin was slipping his coat on. "It has an unusually high rag content. Made it easy for her to identify the manufacturer. Thing is, they quit making it during World War II and switched over to wood pulp because scrap fabric was being collected for the war effort, and they never started making it again afterward. That paper was last manufactured in February of 1943."

Fin was nearly out the door, so Munch gulped the last of his coffee and said, "Hold up. I'll walk you out." Turning to Olivia and Elliot, he said, "Glad you made it back. See you in the morning, guys."

Elliot and Olivia waved him off, and then turned to face each other across their shared desks.

"Why don't you try to catch a few hours in the crib?" Liv asked. "I can type up our reports and you can review them in the morning."

Nodding, Elliot said, "In a while. Right now I'm too wound up to sleep."

Liv shrugged as if it was all the same to her and said, "Suit yourself. Mind if I get started on the paperwork? I'd like to get some sleep tonight."

"Yeah. You go ahead."

After Olivia booted up her computer and began typing, he took the five drawings that predicted the evening's events out of a folder in his desk drawer and sat studying them as he drank his coffee, unaware of the concerned looks his partner was giving him as she worked. He chewed his lips thoughtfully and stared at each drawing in turn, willing them to speak to him. Finally, as if he had made some decision, he scooped them together, tapped them into a neat stack, and slipped them back into their folder and into the drawer again. Then he sat there with his arms folded for a while, just staring at his desk blotter.

Worried about what thoughts might be swirling around inside his head, Olivia asked gently, "You all right?"

"Hmmm? Oh, yeah, fine," he said distractedly. Then he focused on her and said, "You've always been straight with me about who you are and why you're here."

"Yeah. It's not something I like to advertise," she said, knowing he would understand that she was referring to being a child of rape, "but once I got to know you, I felt like, given how much time we're together and the work we do, you had a right to know. Why do you mention it?"

Darting his eyes about in a furtive glance to make sure no one was still working in their area of the squad room, he still decided that he wanted even more privacy and moved to sit in the chair beside Olivia's desk that was usually reserved for witnesses and sometimes victims who came in to give their statements.

"Elliot, what is it?" she asked in concern.

He found it surprisingly difficult to meet her eyes.

"I don't know why . . . I never trusted you with . . . my truth," he began awkwardly.

"You don't have to do this, El—"

"My dad," he interrupted her before she could finish his name, and then he stalled. He fidgeted in his seat, crossed and uncrossed his arms, sighed, and bit his lip.

"He . . ." He pressed his lips into a thin line and stuck just the tip of his tongue out between them, took a deep breath and let it out. "Umm."

Olivia took pity on him and placed a hand on the arm he was resting on the edge of her desk. He stared at it for a long moment, and when he still couldn't speak, she said sympathetically, "I know, El."

He looked at her in surprised and said, "You do? How?"

"I haven't been doing this job for seven years for nothing, you know," she said. "It took me a while to put it together, but from the compassion you show the child victims, the way you're crazy in love with your own kids and the idea of being a dad, and, well, your temper, too, I eventually figured out that your dad wasn't a very nice man."

His eyes drifted to stare at a spot on the floor right in front of him. She watched compassionately as he searched for something to say. His Adam's apple worked up and down several times, and finally, he said, "He had this . . . braided leather belt that he used. It left a pattern on my skin. Even in the summer . . . sometimes I would wear long sleeves and jeans . . . to hide it for him."

He fell silent again for a bit and then abruptly asked. "Why would I do that, Liv? Why would I hide it for him?"

The confusion and hurt Olivia heard in his voice tore at her heart, and she gave his arm a gentle squeeze. Wanting to make it better, and knowing that she couldn't, she tried to explain it for him anyway.

"It's hard for a child to understand why a parent who is supposed to love him would hurt him, Elliot," she said. "There has to be a reason, you think, and you look for an explanation. When there isn't one, you become convinced that it's somehow your fault. You were hiding it for yourself."

He pressed his lips together thoughtfully and slowly nodded, accepting her reasoning.

"What Veronica said, about him being sorry, do you think that was true?" he wondered half to himself.

She hesitated not sure if he wanted her to reply, but when he looked at her, his eyes searching her face, she answered.

"I don't know what your dad was like, except for what you've told me," she said, "but if he ever loved you, he's sorry."

He frowned at her, and then nodded, apparently finding something he could hold on to in her answer. After a moment, he sighed, stood up and stretched, and said, "Yeah, well, I'm going to grab a few hours in the rack. Tomorrow isn't far off."

As he walked past her desk, Olivia gave him a pat on the arm and said, "Sleep well."

"Yeah, thanks," he smiled back at her and headed off to the crib.

**Austin House**

**East 67th Street & Fifth Avenue**

**7:54 A.M., March 16, 2006**

Elliot knew it was way to early to be calling on the idle rich, but working people were usually up and gone by this time. Maybe there would at least be a butler or someone around to tell him about Veronica Austin.

As luck would have it, the lady of the house was already up and Elliot found himself waiting in a spacious vestibule for her to arrive. He admired the marble floors and artwork on the walls and shook his head when the manservant hung his coat in a closet that was more spacious than his kids' bedrooms at home, not that they used them much anymore.

"Detective Stabler, Madame," he heard the deep, cultured voice present him.

Then a surprised young woman gasped, "I really didn't think it would be you."

"Natalie?" Elliot frowned in shock. "Natalie Bell?"

"You remember me!"

"Of course I do," he said, and as she approached him with open arms, he welcomed the hug and responded in kind when she gave him a peck on the cheek.

"It's Natalie Bell-Roeper now, by the way," she told him. "I've been married for almost a year."

"I seem to remember hearing about that," he said. "Congratulations. I hope you have many happy years together."

She looped her arm through his and led him into a large gallery space with a sweeping spiral staircase on one side.

"I sent you an invitation. Didn't you get it?"

"I did," he nodded, "but work's always busy."

"I understand," she said, "but I do wish you could have been there. If not for you . . . "

She didn't need to finish the thought. She'd been kidnapped for ransom as a child. Her parents had paid the money, and the kidnapper had skipped without telling them where she was. Elliot and Alphonse had tracked the guy down, but Elliot been the one to rescue her. Alphonse had been too fat to get into the hole where she was buried.

"So, what brings you here after all this time?" she asked after a quiet moment.

"Actually, I was looking for someone, and my search brought me here," he said. "But I'm sure there must be some mistake."

"Well, mistake or no, why don't you join me for breakfast? Cook has made fresh crullers and coffee."

Elliot grinned, past the point of questioning the coincidences. "All right," he agreed. "Lead the way."

They ate in the formal dining room on the second floor and then crossed the parlor to the living room.

"So, who is this person for whom you are searching?" Natalie asked as she kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa.

Eliot glanced around the elegant space, feeling suddenly unkempt after a long night and too little sleep, but he froze when his eyes rested on a portrait on the north wall between two windows.

"Her!" he gasped.

"Who?"

He stood and crossed the room to look at a painting of a lovely young woman with abundant waves of auburn hair, full red lips, and a creamy complexion.

"Detective Stabler, that's impossible!"

"No. I spoke to her last night."

"You couldn't have, Detective," Natalie said in amusement. "That's my great-grandmother, Veronica Austin-Bell. The doctors say she died of pneumonia in the winter of 1945, but family lore has it she died of a broken heart. My great-grandfather, Matthew Bell, was shot down over the Sea of Japan on Christmas Eve in 1944. He was a Marine Corps fighter pilot. She was only 36 and my grandfather, Nathan, was just thirteen. He was raised by an aunty on his father's side."

He turned to her. "Oh. I see. Was she artistic?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Could she draw, paint, sketch?"

"She was a very talented artist," Natalie said proudly. "Come back into the dining room and I'll show you some of her work."

Three sketches of almost photographic quality hung in a corner near the sideboard. One was of a boy and his father posing with a sizeable bass. They both looked delighted. On an impulse, he asked, a little shyly, "Could I have this picture?"

Natalie peered from the sketch to Elliot, looking from one to the other several times.

"The child rather looks like you, doesn't he?" she asked. "But you can't have been born yet."

He was silent, enraptured by the sketch.

"Detective, are you quite all right?"

He nodded and said softly, "Yeah. This just reminds me of a camping trip I took with my dad when I was a kid."

"Well, we have trunks full of her work in the attic," Natalie told him. "My grandfather said she was a bit compulsive, and always had her sketchbook with her so if an image popped into her head, she could get it on paper before it was lost. You may have it if you wish, but only if you tell me why you're so interested in my great-grandmother."

**Helen O'Hara's House**

**Corona, Queens**

**2:32 P.M., March 16, 2006**

"Elliot!" Kathy Stabler said in shock. It was her day off, but the last thing she expected was for her ex-husband to show up at the door. "What are you doing here? I thought the danger was over."

"It is," he assured her, "for most of us."

Frowning, a little frightened, she asked him, "Elliot, what is that supposed to mean?"

He pressed his lips together, indecision suddenly plaguing him.

"El?"

"I'm worried about Kathleen," he blurted. "I'd like us to search her room, together."

"Elliot!" She was shocked and offended.

"We'll be done before she gets home from school," he said. "If I'm wrong, she'll never know. If I'm right she needs our help."

He was so sincere in his concern for their daughter that Kathy couldn't think he was judging her for the way she was raising their children without him. All he wanted was for them to be safe.

"She's in my sister Susan's old room," she said, standing aside and letting him lead the way.

vvvvvvv

"What are you doing here?" Kathleen shouted when she came up the stairs to find her parents standing in her bedroom. "Haven't you ever heard of privacy?"

Olivia's tips from growing up with an alcoholic mother had been useful. They had found three fifths of gin and over two-dozen mini bottles stuffed in shoes, purses, even the big, leafy philodendron that sat in the windowsill.

Elliot didn't say a word. He just stepped aside so she could see the collection of booze they had discovered. For a long moment, there was nothing but stunned silence, but it was finally broken by Kathleen.

"Daddy, Mom, I'm so sorry," she wept. "I've been . . . I've been so sad, and it felt so good at the party. It just got harder and harder to stop."

Elliot moved toward her, and she collapsed in his arms, weeping. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He scooped her up and moved to sit on the bed where he rocked her in his arms and hushed her like he had when she was a baby. Kathy sat beside him and stroked her hair.

"It's all right, Sweetheart," they told her. "We're going to get you help. You don't have to do this alone."

Eventually, she fell asleep. They tucked her in, and Elliot placed all the bottles in a paper bag so the twins wouldn't see them when he carried them out. He visited with them, played a few hands of Go Fish, fixed a leaky faucet for his mother-in-law, and talked to Maureen when she called. Then Kathy walked him to his car.

"I was worried about Kathleen," she told him, "but I had no idea what was wrong. How did you know?"

"It's a long, long story," he said. "I'll tell you sometime, but not tonight."

She frowned, he smiled. "Come over for dinner on Sunday," he offered. "Leave the kids with your mom, and we can talk. I'll tell you all about it then."

"_You_ want to _talk_?"

"Yeah, I think I remember how."

He laughed at her confusion. "Just say you'll be there, maybe around five?"

She nodded. "Ok."

He was still holding the bag full of booze in one hand, but he wrapped the other arm around her and pulled her close for a kiss.

"Love you. See you Sunday."

"Uh, yeah, love you, too."

He couldn't stop grinning as he drove back to Elmhurst. Who- or whatever she was, Veronica had been right. Talking with his wife really had been easier than he expected. Maybe someday, they could have something together again. Maybe, just maybe, Veronica had saved his life in more ways than one.

**The End**


End file.
